3 Powerful LinkedIn Profile Tips

Whether you are looking for a job or new customers, your personal LinkedIn profile is an invaluable resource.

To get the most out of LinkedIn, its important to go beyond the basics.

Even when LinkedIn congratulates you for having a profile that is 100% complete – there is still much more that you can do.

Take the time to put the following 3 tips into practice and you will enjoy the power of enhancing your LinkedIn profile for search – while also making it more engaging for prospects and potential employers.

#1 – Tag Your Heading with Keyword Phrases

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is fully searchable – both from within LinkedIn and on the open web. To take full advantage of this capability, add keyword phrases to your heading and title that you believe are most commonly being used to search for someone like you.

For example, while I consult with selected clients, my primary source of income is from speaking to small business associations and enterprises whose primary customers are small business – often as a keynote speaker.

Thus, my best keywords are small business, keynote speaker, and my topics of marketing, social media, and business trends.

If you search LinkedIn for your desired keywords, you will notice they are highlighted in the search results. Examine those profiles that are ranking highly and pattern your profile accordingly.

#2 – Add Video to Your Profile

There are a couple of ways to add video to your profile to make it more engaging. Both the Slideshare and the Google Presentations apps can be used to display your video by embedding it into a Powerpoint presentation.

You will find both of them by navigating to the More tab on LinkedIn.

Slideshare serves up your video in a professional manner, in that it is nicely framed and centered on your profile. However, most people think of Slideshare as a Powerpoint application, and may not realize at a glance that there is a video within it.

This is why I prefer the Google Presentations app. It clearly displays the commonly recognized YouTube format, so one instantly understands there is a video available – and not just a static PowerPoint presentation.

Both apps serve up your video from a Powerpoint presentation – with Google Presentations accomplishing this via Google Docs. So, if you do not have a Google Docs account, that is the first place to start.

Embedding video into your LinkedIn profile is easier than you would think, and it only takes a few minutes.

Here are the steps to follow with Google Presentations.

#1 – Create a Google Docs account. If you have any challenges, just Google it.

#2 – Title your Powerpoint presentation in Google Docs to match the title of the YouTube video you plan to embed in your Powerpoint profile.

#3 – Click insert video and you will you will be led to your YouTube channel.

#4 – Select the desired video and save. That’s all there is to it!

#5 – When inserting your video, use the cross-hairs on the corners to enlarge and properly fit it to the screen.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn adds new applications to the bottom of the Applications Module. So, if you want your video to be above some of your other content, you will have to first remove other applications, add your video, and then reinstall the applications you removed.

This is what I had to do to get my video placed above the feed for my WordPress blog.

#3 – Identify and Add Your Most Relevant Skills

It is important to recognize that skills are searchable keyword phrases that can enhance your ability to rank highly within a LinkedIn search – and on the open web.

When you use this feature, LinkedIn will suggest specific skills that are most popular. If those fit, then by all means use them. This places you into a big pond where many will be fishing.

However, if you really want to stand out in search, it’s also essential to select skills that are most relevant to your prospects and customers.

LinkedIn doesn’t necessarily understand your business, so if necessary, be sure to create new skills that will resonate with your target audience. This places you right where you want to be – in a tight little niche where you can shine!

Leave a comment below or share this with your community with any of the share buttons below – or with those on the little red bar at the bottom of this page.

Until tomorrow, Jeff

Photo Credit: mariosundar

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Many thanks for the wonderful tips. Making an engaging and killer LinkedIn profile can work wonders for an individual. And by neglecting his LinkedIn profile, people are just ruining their chances. Here’s a similar article on optimizing your LinkedIn profile http://bit.ly/u0pXnO

Jeff, on my Linkedin profile, it is specialities and not skills that show up as keywords. I know these two sections are similar, but I’ve checked numerous times and get the same results. Site Manager shows up yellow all over my profile, but not in skills!

Thanks, Jeff. These are amazing LinkedIn Tips. Question though. If we remove apps to lift the Google Docs app (for Videos), doesn’t that remove all the content we’ve diligently added. Can’t you just drag that apps module just like all the others?

All of the apps are mostly RSS feeds, so they are “always on.” You can take them out and put them back in and you always get the same feed/content.

BTW, I had trouble with the Google docs video dropping off- which is why I switch to the Slideshare app. I just had two slides – one to introduce the video, and instructions to click forward to watch it.

It seems to be working well.

Only problem is Slideshare serves up your latest presentation. So, after I add a new one, it looks like I’ll have to reload my video again to keep it on my LinkedIn profile.

Hi Jeff – I saw your post in the search results for “LinkedIn Tips”. Thank you specifically for the tip of using your keywords in your profile. I sensed this was a good idea but I needed clarification. Excellent post!

The right keywords certainly create alignment. While I have no basis for this, I presume the day will come when LinkedIn will downgrade those who are stuffing their profile with keywords. E.g. in their summary or experience sections. they’ll just build a list like this

social media guru
social media ninja
social media expert
social media speaker
social media trainer

etc.

The theory is the more keywords the better. This is an old school tactic and Google punishes this behavior by downgrading those sites. I suspect its only a matter of time until LinkedIn does the same.

Even if they don’t, it looks amateurish and communicates to new connections that you are trying to game the system. So, either way its not a good practice.

Bottom line is to make the most of the network while exercising good judgment – as I’m sure you will. 🙂

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